Monday, January 09, 2006

The end of anonymous blogging in the US? - "Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity." Yes. Really.

"Whoever...utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person...who receives the communications...shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

It's entirely possible they could claim the server thing - alternatively they could claim that any website viewable from within the US is covered by it (the whole "place of publication" confusion that no one seems to have worked out with the internet yet...)

So yes, we could all be covered by this. The US does, after all, control the internet. The only potential opt-out is, if you end up prosecuted in a US court, getting a decent lawyer to argue that the new law itself is unconstitutional. Which it most likely is, strictly speaking.

Regardless - it sounds like a bad law in the first place and extending it to the internet is bad also. Bush, the Sugar Plum Fairy, whoever - bad law. Trouble with the internet is that legal commentators are coming to the impractical but logical conclusion that all websites theoretically would have to comply with all laws of all countries if they wanted not to run the risk of prosecution in all countries. So anyone writing about sex had best not get a readership in Iran and then visit Iran, for example. Obviously this is silly, but also true because the internet is international whereas law (mostly) is not.